DOHA: With shopping outlets vying to woo customers with summer and Ramadan promotions, many customers feel most offers are fake or exaggerated.
They called for stricter monitoring of promotions to protect customers from being cheated.
Earlier leading shopping centres used to announce promotions once or twice a year. Now they come out with a new offer immediately after they finish one, under different and attractive names and slogans.
“Most promotions are only to cheat customers. For instance, they would announce a promotion and after some time you will find the same item in the same shop at prices less than what was offered in the promotion. This makes me angry. Now I wait for actual discount to make a purchase,” a local Arabic daily quoted a woman shopper identified as Umm Ziyad as saying in a report yesterday.
Another woman has advised caution while sharing mobile number or email ID with shops if you don’t want to be flooded with messages announcing their promotions.
“Over the past few days I received some 29 messages from shops to announce their promotions or alert you about the deadline so that you should not miss the opportunity.
“This is annoying. It was my mistake to give my mobile number and email ID to shops while paying bills. They have a database of customers. From now on I will not give my mobile number to any shop,” she said.
Another woman Umm Yousuf said some shops repeat the same promotion in different names to cheat customers and sell old stocks. “There is doubt about many promotions, especially those offered on non-food items. Authorities should impose stricter monitoring,” she said. Purchase coupons offered in promotions are another way of cheating, say customers.
“Sometimes you find that most goods are not included in the list that you can buy using coupons. And they increase prices of those items that are included. They give you something in your one hand and take it back from the other,” said Abdullah Zain.
Some believe not all promotions are fake but customers should be choosy. “Promotions are good if you take them in the proper way. We should not run behind every promotion. I usually delay purchase until I find a suitable offer,” said another customer.
The Peninsula
